


all that was shown to me (sunlight)

by soixantecroissants



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, i wrote these instead of sleeping on a plane
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-01 02:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18791089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soixantecroissants/pseuds/soixantecroissants
Summary: An assortment of Kastle oneshots. Rating maybe to change.Chapter 3: but i know where i belong[Based on the prompt: bar.]





	1. the way is long but you can make it easy on me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt: Karen gets a severe case of depression after her father dies and Frank tries to be there for her.

She got the call on a Sunday morning, the light trill of her ringtone almost lost to the springtime breeze as Frank was laying out a blanket for them in Central Park.   
  
It wasn’t a number she recognized, from the puzzled way her eyebrows drew together when she glanced down. But something made her look over at him, and something made him nod back for her to take it, made him sit a little stiffer as she raised a shaky hand and said, “Hello?”   
  
He couldn’t make out what the voice was saying on the other end. He didn’t have to.   
  
He saw it all on Karen’s face. The way the light in her eyes suddenly dulled out, mouth forming one tremulous line like it was the only thing she could hold together. Her nostrils flared ever so slightly as she made an effort to breathe. In. Out. In again.   
  
She didn’t say much, gaze cast down as her fingers quietly shredded the grass apart. An “Okay,” then a soft, strained “How did it…?” and finally, after a long, heavy pause, “When?”   
  
Frank was leaning his arms over his knees, hands clasped together as he squinted into the sun to give her her space. The basket sat between them, unpacked, and he could see beads of sweat starting to gather at the neck of the wine bottle he’d slipped in earlier.   
  
“Okay. Yeah. Okay, thanks for – for letting me know.”   
  
He shifted a little, feeling restless for reasons he wasn’t sure he understood, until she dropped the phone into her lap and his stomach turned, queasy with dread.   
  
Everything in him wanted to reach for her, but he still had so much to learn, and he was so terrified of doing it wrong when it mattered that for a moment he could do nothing at all, the shame of it ripping through him like its own kind of bullet.   
  
Karen spoke to the ground, hardly moving save for her hair as it caught another tail end of a breeze, glinting golden in the sunlight.   
  
“My dad, he, um—“  But she clasped a hand over her mouth, eyes bright and pooling over as she looked up at Frank, and he forgot – everything.   
  
“C’mere.” He hefted their basket away, moving over to fold his arms solidly around her, and her shoulders gave out, body shaking silently into his. “I got you. I got you.”   
  
He palmed the back of her head, fingers tangling into her hair as he murmured soft, hoarse nothings to her. He couldn’t tell if she was hearing any of them, but her hands tightened into his sweater, and he had to have done something, at least. Something was a start.   
  
“D’you…want me to call anyone else?” He hated the hesitation he heard in his own voice, that he should be the one asking to be reassured when this had shit to do with him.   
  
But he wanted – he wanted her to have what she needed, and he wanted to get it for her however he could. Curt would know just the right words to say to make her dad’s passing mean something. Nelson would know just the right joke to tell to make her smile through her tears at them. And Murdock—   
  
Know what? thought Frank. Fuck Murdock.   
  
He could do this. He could do this.   
  
Karen had relaxed all of her weight into him, half-turned sideways so her shoulder was notched beneath his arm, her forehead tucked under his chin.   
  
She glanced up, and he pressed a slow, lingering kiss to her temple, feeling her nudge herself into him. He tightened his arms around her in kind, resting a hand over the side of her neck, massaging his thumb behind her ear.   
  
“Will you come with me?” she asked. “To the funeral?”   
  
“I’m there.” Frank kissed her again, nosing into her hairline. “I’m wherever you need me to be, Karen.”   
  
And for now, that was here in Central Park, holding her close, stroking a spot by her ear while she cried, and the sun inched itself higher and higher into the clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title taken from "the mother we share" by chvrches.
> 
> …
> 
> fic title from hozier's "sunlight."
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](http://ninzied.tumblr.com) :) come say hi.


	2. just hold on it won't be long

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt: their first morning after.

Karen woke up feeling strange, like the knots in every one of her muscles had slowly come unraveled through the night, and it took her a moment to realize she hadn’t slept this well in a long, long time.   
  
The memories returned to her in tingling flashes of recognition, and she closed her eyes, inviting them in. A rasp in her ear, her name coming out in the sound of a shudder. Thick, solid heat pressing her into the mattress. The scrape of stubble over her skin as he kissed and kissed his way up her back.   
  
She gave a shiver that had nothing to do with the morning chill of her apartment, and rolled around to stretch her arm toward his side of the bed.   
  
Her hand met nothing but empty sheets, painfully cool to the touch, and her eyes shot open, as if she needed more proof that he was already gone. Something formed in the pit of her stomach, and she didn’t want to call it disappointment, because it would’ve been foolish to think he would stay.   
  
There was still a dent in his pillow, so he must have used it at some point – but again, not that it mattered, and Karen couldn’t hate but resent him a little, for giving her these memories of the night before and then taking all the warmth from them.   
  
She forced herself out of bed, wrapping sheets around her body and steeling herself before leaving the bedroom. She had half a mind to pace her entire apartment just to let his absence keep sinking in, until she only knew how to be angry with him.   
  
The problem was, everywhere she looked, Frank was still right there.   
  
He was at her door with her favorite Chinese takeout. He was on her couch, teasing her when she gave up on the chopsticks and started forking up her lo mein.   
  
He was in her kitchen, questioning her lack of a working coffee maker and anything that resembled normal people food in her fridge.   
  
(Smirking, when she sidled past him to grab them each a beer, “Liquid carbs don’t count, Page.”)   
  
He was taking the beer out of her hands before moving carefully over her, warmly cupping the side of her face.   
  
He was whispering her name, gruff and reverent.  _ Karen. Karen. _   
  
He was pressing her into the counter with his kisses, teasing her with them. Teasing her in other ways too –  _ ‘M cooking, next time _ – and  _ gonna have to do something about that coffee maker, Karen _ .   
  
She stopped, a fluttering of hope inside her chest daring to spread its wings and take flight—   
  
And she was already halfway there when she heard the knock on her door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from ruelle's "find you."
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](http://ninzied.tumblr.com) :)


	3. but i know where i belong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt: bar.

It was a couple of years before she saw him again, before she found an excuse to make her way back up to the city. She wasn’t all that sure he would even show up, but she figured Curtis wouldn’t have suggested the place if he thought Frank would leave her hanging like that. And besides, he missed her. She knew that he did.  
  
Florida had been good to her – almost disgustingly sunny all the time, even when it rained, and she didn’t even mind that the salt never seemed to wash completely out of her hair. Amy had found a home there, had even been seeing one of the guys teaching this diving class with her, and she couldn’t wait to tell Frank all about it.  
  
She’d kept him updated in little ways, a letter here and there, photos from graduation, postcards addressed to “Your Trailer” by way of the actual address she’d managed to track down for Curtis’ place. One time she’d written “Cupboard Under the Stairs,” because it made her laugh to picture Frank wrinkling his face in that annoyed kind of confusion he liked to feign with her sometimes.  
  
He never responded, but on occasion she’d get something back from Curtis, a few carefully penned lines to let her know that Frank was around, that he was paying attention in his own way. That he was even doing well, too.  
  
“Caught up with an old friend the other day,” Curtis would say. “Might have actually convinced him to get a real job for a change. Had some help. You look like you’re doing all right, kid.”  
  
Also:  
  
“P.S. If someone gives you any trouble, or isn’t treating you like you deserve, I know a guy.”  
  
“Jeez, Frank,” Amy had muttered at that, with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “I only just started dating him, chill.”  
  
She’d already been half-planning the trip for a while – setting money aside with each paycheck, keeping an eye out on the changing bus fare – when she got Curtis’ postcard. It was a black and white photo of an albatross, wings spread wide as it flew down to its mate on the rocky seashore.  
  
Amy turned it over. There was no note with this one, only another address, and a date that was still a few weeks away. It gave her plenty of time to get ready.  
  
She took a plane – with a brief layover in Charlotte, now how was that for irony – and stressed the whole way there, bouncing a leg in her seat at the thought of what awaited her. She fussed with her hair, throwing it up into a messy bun only to take it back down again every five seconds, until it was so unruly it looked two sizes too big for her when she stopped in the bathroom on the way out.  
  
She had to check Curtis’ postcard at least twice, to make sure she’d gotten the address right.  
  
It brought her to some rundown place in Hell’s Kitchen called Josie’s. The windows looked like they hadn’t been washed since the day they were built, and they were covered in yellow-edged flyers, with the bar’s sanitation score conveniently buried beneath an ad for a pawn shop down the street.  
  
The inside of it did not seem any more promising, and Amy was waffling at the doorway when she caught a glimpse of something – someone – over by the bar.  
  
It was that Homeland Security agent, Madani, Amy realized with a little shock, and she was carrying a tray full of shots, distributing them around to people Amy didn’t recognize until—  
  
There was a flash of golden blonde hair, and Amy almost dropped her jaw to the floor as Frank materialized out of nowhere in his black sweater and jeans, leaning in to sweep her hair aside and whisper something into her ear.  
  
“Oh. My God,” said Amy under her breath.  
  
It was the woman from the hospital, who’d raised her voice at him when no one else would, who’d made Frank go all soft-eyed when Amy walked in on them standing too close to each other. Who he’d refused to say more than four words about later – a very gruff “Karen” when Amy asked who she was, and a short, flat “Not gonna happen” when she opened her mouth to grill him for more.  
  
She was still a ways away from them, the music and the bar regulars shoving themselves into all the space in between. But even from here she could see the way they swayed together, how different Frank looked when he smiled.  
  
There was no bruising on his face, no blood. Only the glow of something warm when he looked at Karen, and she looked back at him, bringing a hand up to his cheek and saying something that made him bite his lip on a chuckle before moving in to kiss her.  
  
Nothing stopped him this time, and Amy let out a sigh, grateful they hadn’t noticed her yet. She was _not_ going to make a habit of barging in on any more moments of theirs, no sir, no thank you.  
  
She looked around for Curtis instead, finally spotting him at a corner booth deep in conversation with Madani and a round-cheeked, cheerful-looking blond guy.  
  
She was careless when she brushed past someone else along the way, stammering an apology when she came close to kicking his cane out from underneath him. But he only shrugged it off with a smile, tilting his head an infinitesimal degree as she stumbled on by and tried not to stare after him.  
  
“You made it!” Curtis was practically beaming at her as she approached their table, wrapping her up in a hug that lifted her feet off the ground for a moment.  
  
“Of course I made it,” she told him dryly, grinning across the table at Agent Madani. “How could I say no to such a cryptic message?”  
  
“Hi there!” interjected the blond guy next to her, extending his hand. “Foggy Nelson, at your service. You must be the Amy we’ve heard so much about. You old enough to drink one of these yet?”  
  
“Hi,” said Amy with an overwhelmed sort of smile, at the same time that Curtis was shaking his head and reaching over to take the shot for himself.  
  
“Absolutely not. For another twenty years at least.”  
  
“Good answer,” Madani told him, and the grin he gave her was just flustered enough that Amy gleefully catalogued this information for later use.  
  
“So what’s the occasion?”  
  
But the three of them were looking past her shoulder now, smiling in answer, and Amy turned to see Frank leading Karen over to them.  
  
She raised a knowing eyebrow, trying to keep her face straight and not smirk too obviously at him.  
  
“Hey, kid.”  
  
He looked almost bashful, standing there holding hands with Karen, and Amy couldn’t contain herself anymore.  
  
She launched herself forward, flinging her arms around them both. They stumbled back, but only a step, and Frank lifted her into her toes, Karen’s laughter in her ear.  
  
“I knew it,” said Amy. “I knew it. I knew it, I knew it!”  
  
Karen smelled like a freaking spa or something, clean and sweet like cucumbers and rosewater, and she also looked about seven feet tall when Amy stepped back and decided she was just a little bit in awe of her.  
  
“Okay,” she said. “Yeah, I can totally see it, Castle.”  
  
“Ah, knock it off,” he told her, voice rumbling, and he pressed a kiss to her hair before he released her.  
  
He hadn’t let go of Karen’s hand, Amy noticed, but from this angle she could just see a glint of something on her finger, and she almost had to cover her mouth to keep a _Shut up, shut up, shut UP_ from bursting out of it.  
  
“I, uh,” and Frank cleared his throat as Amy gazed up at him as innocently as she could, eyes wide and unblinking. “Thought it was time you guys met.”  
  
“It’s good to see you again,” Karen told her, something like a wink in her tone to match the smile that went with it.  
  
“You too,” said Amy, then with a hasty look over to Frank – “Sorry, but I’m gonna have to borrow her now” – she linked her arm through Karen’s and began to pull her away. “Tell me _every_ thing.”  
  
“Christ,” she overheard Frank groan behind them, “Didn’t I say this was probably a terrible idea?” and Curtis’ laughter boomed over the music as Karen and Amy walked off arm in arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](https://ninzied.tumblr.com)!


End file.
